How to Stay Young

Season 2Episode 1ABCJanuary 9, 2018

You may be free from grey hairs and wrinkles, but do your insides tell a different story? The team examine the science behind getting old, and help ordinary people slow down the speed at which they're ageing.

Stress-related diseases are some of the biggest killers in modern developed society, yet we know little about their root cause. That all changes in this unprecedented look at the revelatory science, based on the latest research by pioneering scientists including neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, a professor at Stanford University. For over a quarter of a century he has been fascinated by why some people are crushed by stress while others seem to thrive on it.

The second of a fascinating series on the vast array of sleep disorders features more people for whom sleep is a mysterious and often frightening thing. The clinicians at Papworth Clinic in Cambridge, UK meet Alex who suffers from night terrors - only his experiences are more than terrors. They have him jumping out of windows and running out of houses.

This episode explores what can give brains a boost. In America, Angela tries out a new treatment that's proven to help memory and concentration. Plus Chris discovers the best exercise we can do for our brains.

If you've ever wondered what you get up to while you're asleep, this series is a revelation. Whatever wild and weird sleeping habits you have, this tells you that you are not alone. We spend a third of our lives asleep, yet it's an area that has been somewhat overlooked by medical science. But thanks to unprecedented access to a specialist UK sleep clinic, footage of their patients' range of unusual sleep problems, such as parasomnia, narcolepsy, sleep eating, and idiopathic hypersomnia spotlight an array of strange night time activities. Screened over eight weeks, there is hardly a sleeping issue left untouched in this fascinating, dramatic program.